Waiting

The rest of the day went by like clockwork.

Li and Old Thane worked the fields and gardens while the builders made progress on the stall. What did change was that there was a certain somebody standing around at the edge of the main road, in front of the cottage, not budging.

Iona stood there as still as a statue, her eyes downcast.

Li sighed and paid no mind. The less attention he gave her, the sooner it was that she was going to leave.

But by nightfall, when the builders had packed up and Charles's children had given their last goodbye hugs to Zagan, Iona still stood there. Li waved the builders goodbye, thanking them for a day of honest hard work, but he ignored Iona, not making any eye contact with her.

The builders, as they rode on their horses past Iona, took a quizzical look at her, but when they looked back to Li, he shook his head, and they moved on without question.

Li went back to the cottage where Old Thane was readying the dinner table, getting out their staple diet of bread, berries, and leftover meats that Triple Threat had gifted. Two wooden plates on the table accompanied by a pitcher of cold water. The fresh smell of wild berry jam wafted through the air, far more intense and less sweet than the artificially produced gunk of Li's home world.

Li got the fireplace started, taking out their firebrand, a circular little piece of silver inscribed with a rune that he recognized as the lowest variant of Ignis. In Elden World, weapons and armor had runeslots where runes could be placed to grant various buffs or even store spell effects, and here, this firebrand acted as a lighter, allowing it to cast one small weak fire spell that recharged every day.

Apparently, back in the day, the people of this world had to use firesteels and flint to get their fires started, but as they learned to live with Elden World magic and became more used to it, they found they could shape it to their needs much better.

Li knelt by the fireplace where piles of charred logs stood piled up. He flashed the firebrand towards it and tapped the silver twice. The rune sparked and a tiny stream of flame, much like a blowtorch, sputtered out, igniting the wood.

"Fire's up," said Li as he came around to the dinner table.

Old Thane sat down, the wooden chair creaking under his weight as he looked expectantly at Li. "Say, lad, do you think the lass by the road would appreciate the fire?"

Li shrugged. "I have my doubts that a little cold would really do anything to her." He sat down at the table and took in the smell of natural berries. He might not have enjoyed any of the food, but the scent of nature's gifts completely unaffected by pesticides or engineering he would never get tired of. "Besides, old man, what does it matter to you?"

"Nothing much to me, lad, but the lass has been out all day and now night." Old Thane cracked a slight smile. "Say, you haven't been out breaking hearts, have you? The only times I know that young maidens will let their dresses wrinkle in the wind is when their hearts are played with."

Li straightened his back and craned his neck to see out the window. As expected, Iona still stood at the main road. "Okay, this isn't that, I guarantee you. If I had to put a word on this, it would be more like…obsession. She'll run along sometime."

"But you know, lad, obsession is quite the force. I should know, when my muscles were spry and my bones sturdy as iron, I was quite a strapping man myself. It was a terrible ordeal having to pry off doe-eyed lassies here and there from village to city."

Li rolled his eyes. "I wonder what Aine would say if she heard this."

Old Thane chuckled. "She would respect my iron will! For I have never betrayed her. She was my first and only flame, and no others have ever strayed me from her." He sighed and shook his head to clear his memories away. "But to my point, lad, obsession or not, it would be unlike a proper lad to leave her out like this."

Li shifted in his seat a little. He had to acknowledge that he was treating her a little harshly here, not

even really hearing her out. He had lashed out at her mostly because she had dared to suggest his farm was a front, something fake, something not real. But it wasn't as if he could have expected her to know that.

At the same time, he really didn't have much of a use for her and explaining who she was and what she would do to Old Thane would require quite a bit of imaginative storytelling.

"I'll give her another hour or two. I'm sure she'll see reason and leave by then."

After an hour, rain started to fall. By this time, Li and Old Thane had finished their meal. As Li cleared the plates and put back the foodstuffs, he glanced out the window. Iona was still there in the exact same spot, showers of rain crashing upon her. Her hair hung low, matted together with water dribbling down its length. Her robes, drenched with water, became even darker than usual, drooping heavily towards the ground.

Her figure, normally hidden under the loose robes, became more visible, and she really did seem to be wasting away. Just like her arms, the rest of her body was gauntly thin.

"Okay, this is ridiculous," said Li.

"Is she still out there?" said Old Thane, this time with more concern. He was seated by the fireplace, his brawny hands massaging his leg. "I hear the rain falling something fierce. You ought to get her to see reason or give her some shelter soon, young lad."

Several knocks rung on the door.

Li sealed the pantry shut, making sure the preservation rune glowed properly before he went to the door. Upon opening it, he found a knight standing there, his helmed turned up to reveal a round, moustached, and decidedly tired face.

"What is it?" said Li. He looked at the knight and figured it probably felt awful to move around in heavy rain in so much heavy armor and leather underneath.

The knight gave Li a surprised stare – the same kind of stare that almost everyone in Riviera gave him for being a foreigner – before blinking and regaining a professional, aloof look. He pointed a gauntleted finger down to Iona. "Some disagreements with the wife, perchance? Or, the way I see it, a slave you brought with you? I have to say, foreigner, slavery is forbidden under the great light of Soleil."

Li palmed his face before shaking his head. "No, nothing like that. I'll handle this. This is nothing important, so you're better of spending your time finishing your patrol and getting back to a warm and dry bed."

The knight stepped aside as Li went out. He didn't care much about the rain except for the fact that he had to dry his clothes later. The cold didn't affect him at all. He came up to Iona and put a hand to her shoulder.

"Look, I appreciate that you're showing this much dedication."

Iona's face brightened up immensely, a sunny aura emanating from her skin, lighting up the darkness for a fraction of a second before it dimmed as she contained her powers.

"But you're causing me a lot of trouble," continued Li. He pointed to the knight.

"Shall I kill him, then?" said Iona.

"What?" Li gave her a confused glance, and she seemed ready, her fingers splayed outwards, green tendrils of light beginning to curl around them. "No, no. I thought you learned to live with humans. You do that, and more and more knights come, and then I'll have a lot to answer for."

"I have learned to live among men, yes, but seeing you has surfaced back memories of my old ways." Iona cocked her head. "And I do not mean to offend, O great forest spirit, but they are merely humans, wasteful of the earth and its blessings. You can blow them all away. A few sacks of bone and blood under a layer of tin are nothing to you."

"Sure, I can beat all the knights down to a pulp, maybe even level the city, but for what? All I want to do is farm, not play kingdom simulator."

"All you wish to do is…farm? Surely by farming, you mean to cultivate the life around you, raise the forests to their heights before demons and men corrupted them? Topple kingdoms and let the green take over?"

"No. By farming, I mean farming. It's that simple. If you can't accept that-"

"No, no!" Iona grasped at Li's arm again. "I can accept it. I do not mean to question your will. I will follow you no matter what you do, do anything you will of me, so long as you take me as your root, whether that is tending to a farm or living amongst mortals."

Li looked at her face, at her open-mouthed desperation, the cold rain crawling down her face, forming into droplets around her amber lashes, and he sighed. He could also feel instinct coming from a part that he knew wasn't human, the kind of strange belonging he felt when he used his Eldritch powers, except far warmer.

When he felt belonging from his Eldritch spells, he felt he was stepping into a cold, abandoned house, devoid of life, sticky with cobwebs and musty from age but still his and his to be for ages to come.

Hearing Iona suggesting that she could be his "root", or whatever that meant, he could tell it was something that would expand his power as a forest spirit, something that would draw upon his innate connection with the wilds which he had neglected up until now unless he used it to sense life when farming.

It felt like the sense of belonging he would get walking into a childhood home, warmly lit with the brightness of nostalgia and nurture.

"Okay, I'll hear you out, if only to get that tinhead away from here." Li glanced back to the cottage. The knight was still standing there, but this time mounted on his horse, watching Li with some suspicion. It was evident the knight wouldn't leave until he was sure foulplay wasn't afoot. "It's going to be a little while before that idiot starts to go, and I already know you must be a herbalist of some skill if you're a proctor, so I know what you can do for me already. It's just I'd appreciate doing things myself, you know, with my new license and all. So in the meantime, how about you tell me about yourself?"